When the Rotterdam Theatre announced the programme for the year (2001) that the city would be European Capital of Culture, director Jan Zoet hosted it at Amsterdam's Stadsschouwburg. In the ongoing 010-020 struggle, quite a statement. Zoet knew that the national press sat in the capital and was rarely willing to look outside the city limits. He also knew that...
On 19, 20, and 21 December at the Maaspodium in Rotterdam, Maas theatre and dance, What You See Festival and Jonge Harten Festival will present three theatrical investigations for young people in the joint project From here onwards: makers Guilliano Pinas, Art Wutthinan Srisayam and Sue-Ann Bel will all share a personal story in their own artistic way. From here onwards is a collaborative research...
Winfred Voordendag will take over the business directorship ad interim from outgoing director Bernadette Stokvis from 1 November 2024. Winfred has worked as business director or director in the arts sector for 25 years and is looking forward to starting work at Maas. Cobi van Beek, chairman of the Supervisory Board of Maas theatre and dance, on the...
On Saturday 19 October, Maas theatre and dance's new toddler performance PRRRT PRRRT FLAP FLAP (3+) will premiere at the Maaspodium in Rotterdam. Creators Sara Giampaolo and Esther Schouten build on the line of toddler theatre that Maas has developed in recent years: big themes brought in a playful way. After the premiere, the show will tour until February 2025
'Plattenbau,' the driver says with some horror as we pass some boarded-up concrete porch flats. The GDR-built flats are in Alt Schöndorf, two kilometres outside Weimar's historic centre. Nailed shut for years, and squatters didn't look after them either. A hated legacy, but more by the West than the East. The...
On Saturday 19 October, Maas theatre and dance's new toddler performance PRRRT PRRRT FLAP FLAP (3+) will premiere at the Maaspodium in Rotterdam. Creators Sara Giampaolo and Esther Schouten build on the line of toddler theatre that Maas has developed in recent years: big themes brought in a playful way. After the premiere, the show will tour until February 2025
ROTTERDAM CHILDREN PENETRATE THE FIBRES OF THE MAASPODIUMIN PERFORMANCE WE (8+) CHILDREN SHARE THE STAGE WITH PROFESSIONAL PERFORMERS. From 24 August to 1 September 2024, the performance WIJ (8+) plays at the Maaspodium, Rotterdam. The performance is a theatrical route through the Maaspodium and explores the power of change. A group of Rotterdam children dabble in the fibres of theatre and...
On 14 July, Arin Keshishi and Marmoucha Orchestra will present "Self-Reflection: The Live Experience" at North Sea Jazz Festival. Iranian bassist, composer and artistic director of the Marmoucha Orchestra, Arin Keshishi, is known for combining Western techniques, classical music, jazz and flamenco. Thus, Keshishi, who also has roots in Armenian culture, brings contemporary jazz and Eastern influences...
Bernadette Stokvis is leaving after 11 years of service as business director of Maas theatre and dance. Her successor will be recruited soon. Stokvis has been business director at Maas since 2013. Before that, she was initiator, artistic coordinator and later business director of Korzo The Hague. Thanks in part to her leadership, Maas is a BIS company and also the largest theatre and dance company for youth in...
It seems that at the inset performances of Maas Theatre&Dans' latest, 'Stuntkont', a few schools have already complained. Classes even walked out. Logical perhaps, at least for adult school teachers who can't take poop-and-pee jokes. Children from 6 to 106 can only laugh really hard at them. So poop-and-pee jokes turn out to be more amusing than I myself expected. At least when they are made...
The tenth and final Critic's Choice programme at IFFR: anything that provokes conversation.
I used the word 'revolutionary' when a camera crew from Theatre Rotterdam asked me what I thought of Closed Eyes. I don't know if my otherwise extraordinarily enthusiastic response will make it to the final edit, but a day later, that feeling is not gone. What Alida Dors, artistic director of Theatre Rotterdam, has shown is a revolution in the world of...
ROTTERDAM - On Wednesday 18 October at 16:30, the kids of the Maaspodium can be followed via livestream as they give a look before and behind the scenes at various theatres throughout the Netherlands, kicking off the first ever National Children's Theatre Week. Together with presenter Tirsa With, they will show how much fun theatre is! As a new initiative of the National Theatre Fund,...
Earlier this year, business director Marjan van der Haar announced her departure from IFFR. It was announced yesterday that Clare Stewart will be her successor next week. Stewart has earned her spurs at numerous leading festivals, including the BFI London film festival and BFI Flare London, the British Film Institute's LGBTQIA festival; the Sheffield documentary festival...
Following its successful premiere in December, Islands, the latest work by composer Richard Ayres, can be seen at De Doelen on 1 April. Together with artist duo Nest, Ayres creates nineteen imaginary islands, combining live music with audio electronics, visual art, photography, video and performance. Islands is a production of Asko|Schönberg and BredaPhoto. 'One of the most idiosyncratic and original...
Cees van Leeuwen was a bass guitarist in the pop formation Kayak. Not for very long; soon he chose to study again: cultural anthropology and law. He specialised in labour and entertainment law and started working as a lawyer. In later years, he was the legal counsel of singer Anouk, among others. Cees van Leeuwen was also state secretary for culture for a year (on behalf of...
The 52nd edition of the International Film Festival Rotterdam kicks off on 25 January. Four questions to the artistic director on the course set.
The Rotterdam Council for Arts and Culture (RRKC) has been disbanded from 1 January 2023. I wrote about this in June this year2, and earlier the editor-in-chief did3. At that time, formal decision-making in Rotterdam had yet to take place. Given the question marks in the city council, it is safe to say that the college finally pushed through the dissolution. The...
As you know, Culture Press is an important voice in cultural news coverage. We were founded in 2009, at a time when all newspapers and broadcasters were reducing their arts editorships, and many zzp arts journalists were on the street. Publishers no longer wanted to pay for what they called 'low-hanging fruit' (reviews, interviews, announcements). Culture Press jumped into that gap, and in the nearly 14...
On Saturday 17 December 2022, The Ozard of Wiz will have its premiere at the Maaspodium in Rotterdam. This moving and quirky theatre production with an all-queer cast & crew presents vogue, pop music and melancholy in a seventies sauce. For this production, Maas theatre and dance enthusiastically joins forces with ROSE stories, with dance by Kiki House of Angels and...
Jeroen Spitzenberger lets New Rotterdam Jazz Orchestra shine So typically Rotterdam is this performance, just right, because of the space the lauded actor grants to a rather unknown 11-member male orchestra. For weeks, we happily watch Spitzenberger as Tim in the excellent TV series Oogappels, just as we intensely enjoyed The Year of Fortuyn at the same NPO in which he (also)...
Of the 122 stage texts read by the jury of the Dutch Toneelschrijfprijs, just under 30 were written by female authors. In a field where the number of female workers is huge, this is striking. Because, the jury rightly stated, in written Dutch theatre, the male gaze is still dominant. While the theatre audience percentage-wise more women...
John Buijsman and Helmert Woudenberg make a very funny duo. Buijsman the archetypal Rotterdammer, certainly also in terms of tone of voice, but also the actor who is role-steady, playing distinct characters. In De Recreanten, a play he made for and about his own holiday resort in Hoek van Holland, he plays together with Helmert Woudenberg. The creator of continuous improvisation has a...
When he was appointed chairman of Rotterdam's Arts and Culture Council in December 2021, nothing seemed wrong. But less than six months later, he is virtually on the street now that Arts alderman Said Kasmi (D66) has decided to disband the Rotterdam advisory council. After 17 years. Gonçalves is baffled, certainly...
The Turfsteker rejected The mayor was angry. The councillor was angry. Everyone was angry because the A municipality wanted to put up a work of art by a locally highly esteemed sculptor as a tribute to the peat cutter, but was denied a grant by the province. The Cultural Council had advised negatively. The relevant advisory committee lamented the artist's figurative work; it left nothing to...
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